Need for guidance and controls on royalty rate reductions for federal coal leases
The Secretary of the Interior has used his authority to reduce royalty rates on eight Federal coal leases - amounting to $12 million in reduced Federal revenues. Requests for royalty rate reductions were precipitated by recent legislative enactments and a 2-year departmental experiment that raised royalty rates on coal leases to significantly higher levels. Because the Secretary is authorized to readjust the royalty rates on 438 leases by 1990 more requests for royalty reductions are likely in the future. The Interior Department has not clearly defined its policy and procedures on royalty rate reductions. The approval process is inconsistent, and accounting and auditing expertise needed to evaluate reduction requests have not been used adequately. GAO recommends that Interior develop a more clearly defined policy and accompanying regulations on royalty rate reductions, determine when audits of applicants' financial statements are needed, and better use existing financial expertise in its evaluations of reduction requests.
- Research Organization:
- General Accounting Office, Washington, DC (USA)
- OSTI ID:
- 6921731
- Report Number(s):
- GAO/EMD-82-86; ON: DE83900653
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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ACCOUNTING
AUDITS
COAL DEPOSITS
COAL INDUSTRY
EVALUATION
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GOVERNMENT POLICIES
INCOME
INDUSTRY
LEASES
MINERAL RESOURCES
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